PROPER 26
Isaiah 1: 10 – 18
Psalm
32: 1 – 8
II Thessalonians 1: 1 – 4; 11 – 12
Luke 19: 1 – 10
This is the homily given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr. Gene Tucker on Sunday October 30, 2022.
“TURNAROUND”
(Homily
text: Luke 19: 1 – 10)
Luke,
alone among the Gospel writers, treats us to the telling of Jesus’ encounter
with the chief tax collector Zacchaeus, as the Lord made His way through
Jericho on His way to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.
The
meeting with Jesus results in a turnaround for Zacchaeus, who amends his ways,
who promises to undo the wayward ways of his work on behalf of the occupying
Romans, and who assures the Lord that he will repay anyone he’s defrauded “four-fold”.
There’s
a lesson for all of us in the meeting of the unholy Zacchaeus and the holy One
of God, Jesus, the Christ.
That
lesson has to do with the absolute necessity of realizing that we, if we are to
try to rely on our own merits and our own abilities, are incapable of changing
the fundamental nature of the way we are. It’s entirely possible that
Zacchaeus, whose own guilt over the ways he had been conducting himself, came
to his senses because of his proximity to the holiness of Jesus. I don’t think
there’s any other way to regard Zacchaeus’ change-of-heart.
Our
experience with the things that seem to take hold of us, and to take over our
lives, can only be conquered if we admit to ourselves that “We can’t”, but that
“Someone else can”. We can see this clearly in the matter of drug addiction (or
any other sort of addiction, for that matter), for a change of course only
takes place when the person him/herself admits that they need help. In the
matter of our spiritual health, that One who “can” is God Himself.
Notice
that Jesus says that “salvation has come to Zacchaeus’ house”. That saving
grace came only when Zacchaeus admitted his wrongful conduct and assured the
Lord that he would change course. Zacchaeus’ act is a lesson for us, today.
AMEN.
